San Antonio Palopó

alfombra

    On the Thursday before Easter, my mom, me and some friends went to San Antonio Palopó.  San Antonio Palopó is a little town that is on the complete other side of the lake from us.  We went to San Antonio Palopó for their Pascua (Easter) celebrations which are set up by the Catholic church.

    In the town, they make colored sawdust blankets called alfombras.  To make the alfombras, first you lay down the plain sawdust, then you use spray paint to color the base, next you lay down a stencil and fill in the gaps with colored sawdust, finally take of the stencil and start a new one.

    Also, the women there wear "hair crowns" as their traditional dress.  Over all, I liked going to San Antonio Palopó and I think that it was very fun and amazing.

hair crown

Guatemalan Textiles

In this blog post, I will be telling you about the textiles that are made here in Guatemala.

 A woman's dress is made almost always made up of a long skirt, a woven belt and a woven and embroidered shirt.  Most weavers still use the traditional natural plant dyes to dye the yarn.  Also, almost all weavers use cotton as their yarn to weave with.

this is a natural dye called ajocote

A lot of the things that the weavers weave are like hammocks, table runners, tablecloths, blankets, clothes and hammock chairs.  Usually, these textiles have geometric, floral, animal, or human designs.  Textile looms are composed of short wooden sticks that are put in the loom to make the weaving process easier.  Almost all of the women and some of the men still wear the traditional clothing of their village.

Of all the textiles that I have seen, I like the clothes the best because they are always so elaborate.

this is a woman's belt

these are some of the yarns that the weavers use

these middle school girls are wearing their village's traditional

 clothing.

Handwork

me doing a rock sculpture

At school, we have a class called handwork.  In handwork, we are making rock sculptures.  In total, everyone has two finished pieces and one that we are currently working .

To carve the rocks, we are using a chisel and a hammer.  This is a photo of me with "Nacho" (the handwork and music teacher) helping me on my rock.  Also in handwork, we have little buddies that we help in handwork every Monday afternoon.

Here is some info about Mayan rock sculptures:

•the sculptures are made with an amazing amount of detail.

•the altars are usually frogs.

•some royal stairways have carvings in them.

•jaguars and musicians are used in a lot of their sculptures.

Lago Atitlan

About 85,000 years ago, Super volcano Atitlan erupted.  The eruption was huge.  People in Florida and Panamá found pieces of the volcano's explosion.  The eruption covered the sky with black ash.  It also created a crater for a lake,now called lago Atitlan.


15,000 years after Super volcano Atitlan, the San Pedro volcano began to erupt and form.  30,000 years later Tolimán, 30,000 after that, Atitlan(not the super volcano).


And that is how Lago Atitlan was formed over many years.

Guatemala!

This is the dock where I catch a boat to school every day.

    On January 25th my mom and I arrived at Lago Atitlan in Guatemala.  While we are here, I will be going to Escuela Caracol.  Escuela  Caracol is in San Marcos La Laguna.  Every day, when I go to school, I take a launcha (a small motor boat taxi) that goes as fast as it can even on really, really bumpy waves, to get there and then walk the rest of the way.  Sometimes to get back we take a "tuk tuk".  A tuk tuk is a little three wheeled car with no doors.  In Mexico, tuk tuks are called "Moto Taxis".

This is me jumping off of a rope swing over the lake.  In the background you can see the San
Pedro volcano.

This is my classroom with my whole class in it.

Colorado River is in our heart.

This is mom posting on Eli's blog.  I just want to document, for the record, the serendipity of parts of our 2013.  While working on my children's water book, Eli and I took a great trip to the SW USA including spending much time in and around the Colorado River.  We both fell in love with it and it's story.  Here, Eli takes photos of the river from a view above the Grand Canyon on his birthday.  He started 6th grade soon after this photo was taken and at school the theme was "The year of the River"  Eli chose the COLORADO as his river to study and wrote these as an intro and then a conclusion to his book about the river  he completed in the first term.  So wonderful to mama!  ALSO, a shout out to the Redford Center who donated (to Eli's school) a copy of their recent and wonderful documentary "Watershed" about the issues facing the river.

“Tweet tweet, tweet tweet” said the birds in the air.  They sucked on honeysuckles, fluttered in the leaves of the trees while the sun sent rays of golden light into my waters.  “Gather near and I will tell you my story, for my waters are lessening and I may not survive for long.  So perch on a branch or a log in the water but always be listening, listening to the story that is about to be told.  Spread the knowledge of my life everywhere so that everyone may learn my story.  I will tell you everything I have experienced in my sixty million years of living,” I said.  “We will go,” replied the sparrow, “ we will make your story heard throughout the the rest of the world.  We will tell our cousins and our children who will tell their children who will tell their children and eventually the whole world will know the story of the Colorado River.”  So they perched on a branch or a log in the water and began to listen, listen to the story I am about to tell.

 ---------------------------------------------------

Another big problem for me is that I didn’t have enough water to reach my delta in the gulf of California.  Dams took all of my water so none traveled to the ocean.  The thing that saved me from dying was the wetland of La Cíenega de Santa Clara.  It is a natural wetland that gets me a lot closer to my destination.  The wetland is also a habitat for a lot of extraordinary birds and plants.

The white people have used my water for irrigation, energy and just plain old home uses too.  I am sad to say that 15% of my water goes to flushing toilets and 57% goes toward agriculture.  Companies also frack for natural gases and oil shale (kerogen shale) nearby that pollutes my waters too much.  It causes fish and wildlife systems to die because of my polluted waters.                                              

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Each minute, hour, day and night I feel weaker, more likely to dry up the next day.  I am sad that very few projects have been effective enough to make a difference.  I am ill, for the amount of water that is used by people is so great that I am not able to extend my waters to what used to be their full length.

My story is complete, I have told you everything that  I have experienced, everything I have done and seen until now.   I will never forget you little sparrows,  how you have saved my waters and taken very good care of me.

“You are welcome Colorado River, me and my fellow sparrows will never forget you either.”

A couple of weeks ago my summer vacation started, and already my mom and I are traveling across the United States.  Ten days ago we got to Glenwood Springs, CO.  When we were there,we went to a hot springs, took a hike to Hanging Lake and went river rafting on the Shoshone rapids on the Colorado River .

  After we left Glenwood Springs we went to an alligator farm, and I got to hold a baby alligator.

  Now we are in Albuquerque.

   Next we are going to go to the Grand Canyon, on my birthday.